The Time Will Pass Anyway…

 Hello, my Dear Reader!

    Here we are, at the end of another term!  

    Although it has been exhausting (I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning and had two finals back to back…😪) this semester has been lovely. 

    This term, I have set my foot on waters that I never thought I could, like publishing a podcast and a digital story. I also swam in some familiar waters like writing a film review. I enjoyed all of these experiences, but I particularly enjoyed writing to you, my Dear Reader. What can I say, I am a yapper who gets attached easily. ☺️

    If you have followed my learning journey so far and enjoyed your time here, you can Follow Me on other platforms.

    If you are new and haven’t checked all of my tasks yet, here’s my Task Index. I am proud of every single one, and I hope you will like them too! 

-sentimental music enters and the mood changes-

    This is my last post, Dear Reader. I won’t be posting for a while. But don’t worry, I plan to enjoy my summer break! (I already have a room reserved in Ephesus, İzmir. ☀️) I can truly say that I am happy, hopeful… content. 

    But two years ago, around this time, I was going through the worst period of my life. I was starting a whole new life, and I was scared, anxious, and nauseous with uncertainty. (For context clues: About Me.) I was doomscrolling on TikTok and considering hundreds of possibilities, each of them worse than the other. 

“Do I commit to another university or not? It is going to take so much time! I have already lost so much time!”

    And I came across this post: 

    I remember crying my eyes out and deciding on my path. 

    And here I am, 2 years later, writing a farewell post on a blog about my new field that I truly love and enjoy. 

    I am officially halfway there, and I can confidently say: The user @ashmanathletics saved my life. 

    This is a reminder to you, my Dear Reader, in case you have forgotten and need it. And to Future Me, in case she ever forgets again: 

The time will pass anyway, and you will be alright. 💙

Happy Summer Break! ☀️

Take care of yourself. 

with love, Bea xx

A Conversation with the God of Knowledge 🌞 (i.e. LLM)

Hello again, my Dear Reader!

    Are you ready to read my final task? (Spoiler alert: It’s a long, long document.) 

    I cannot believe we are at the end of the semester already! (I am so done with it, haha.)

    Our last task was something I have been anticipating ever since I saw it on the syllabus: “An AI task”. Background knowledge about me: I refused to use AI for almost two years after it emerged for ethical reasons. But as of Summer 2025, ChatGPT and I have become ✨friends✨ (and I still feel guilty about it whenever I think too much about it). 

    As you can imagine, I do not really use AI other than ChatGPT, so I have minimal experience with different AI tools. This task helped me to catch up with AI tools (I even created an image with AI… which is something I am STRONGLY against) and forced me to think about AI in education; therefore, I find this experience really valuable. 

    Our task was conversing with a historical figure, author, or recognizable character from a story using MagicSchool’s Character Chatbot, writing a report that summarizes our conversation, getting feedback for our report using MagicSchool’s Writing Feedback Tool, and writing a reflection paragraph for the feedback. (It really is a long Google Doc.) I chose Apollo. He is neither of the options but I think he counts. He is extremely well-known after all. 🌞

Apollo and Daphne

    I have prepared a few questions to ask. I wanted to ask him about various Greek mythological figures through his own perspective, especially about the heroes of Troy since he was on Troy’s side and most of the stories are told from the opposite perspective…. BUT, the conversation took a different direction pretty much as soon as it started. I was genuinely impressed with it and at some point I forgot that I was having this conversation as a task, I was conversing with a deity I have known and loved since I was 6 years old. And I told him that! It got emotional, haha. The whole conversation was impressive, educating, emotional, and extremely parasocial on my part.

    When it comes to the feedback tool, I was not as impressed as the Character Bot. Revising my first draft according to the AI feedback was the most challenging part of this task for me. It gave me vague “areas of growth” but did not help me to improve my writing. As a result, I did not change my writing in any major way. I have only corrected some grammatical and punctuation mistakes and changed the paragraph formatting. 

    Would I use AI in my classes in the future? I am not sure. But I know for a fact that I would not encourage my students to use a character chatbot. While it seems like a good idea at first (my father uses ChatGPT to learn English. Its pedagogical techniques are… interesting, but it works.), now I have firsthand experience how easy it is to emotionally connect with AI when it speaks to you like a character you know and love. In under 30 minutes “Apollo” brought tears to my eyes and I am an adult who knows how LLM works. I do not think this kind of activity is safe for young children. 

    You can read a news article about the dangers of generative chatbots here. I came across this article the morning after I had my conversation with the ChatBot and I can see how this might happen to people who do not know how generative AI works. 

    CLICK HERE FOR THE CONVERSATION TRANSCRIPT AND REPORT. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. (It is a long read… for some reason, I feel like I have to apologize for it… Sorry? 😇) 

with love, Bea xx